- Baltimore's offense improves with Lamar Jackson: The Ravens rank third in rushing success rate and yards per carry with Jackson under center, creating a favorable matchup against Buffalo's struggling run defense.
- Buffalo's offense faces specific challenges: The Ravens have been effective at limiting quarterback scramble production and play zone coverage on 65% of defensive snaps.
- The betting market favors Buffalo: Some markets give the Bills a 62% chance of winning, but the matchup analysis highlights reasons Baltimore could outperform those expectations.
Many NFL bettors start with individual markets — spreads, totals or player props — and ask, “Which spread looks good?” or “Which totals stand out this week?” It’s a bottom-up approach: Start with the bet, then decide whether the underlying game script supports it.
In this space, we’ll work in reverse. Each week, we’ll focus on one game and take a top-down approach, starting with the broader picture of how the teams and players are performing and what the data suggests about the matchup. From there, we’ll identify the betting markets that best align with that expected game script.
The goal is to form a view of how the game is likely to unfold first, then find the spreads, totals and props that offer the best ways to bet on that outcome.
A look at the fundamentals
Let us begin, as always, by looking at the team fundamentals to set the frame for our analysis.
Earned Drive Points (EDP) quantifies a drive’s quality on a points-per-drive basis, accounting for how repeatable and sustainable the success on each drive was.
By this metric, the Bills have one of the NFL’s best offenses but one of its worst defenses. The Ravens have been roughly average on both sides of the ball, although the data includes a significant number of games in which Lamar Jackson was sidelined by injury.
With Jackson healthy through the first four weeks, the two offenses were in the same tier, while the defenses occupied roughly the same positions on the graph. Regardless of which efficiency metric you choose, the story is similar.
However, some markets give the Bills a 62% chance of winning, making them clear favorites.
Given how poorly Buffalo’s defense has performed and how well Jackson played through the first four weeks, there are few metrics that wouldn’t paint a favorable picture of Jackson in this matchup.
Jackson has been particularly dominant against plays featuring coverage mistakes, earning the third-highest grade in the NFL while ranking not far behind in production. The Bills’ perfect coverage rate is five percentage points lower than the rate Jackson has faced this season, giving him even more opportunities to exploit coverage mistakes than he has typically seen.
Likewise, the Ravens’ running game is a different beast with Jackson at quarterback. While Baltimore’s overall rushing numbers have been underwhelming, the sample with Tyler Huntley under center offers little insight into what to expect with Jackson and the rushing threat he brings to the offense.
Baltimore ranks third in both rushing success rate and yards per carry with Jackson under center, with both numbers dropping significantly when Huntley plays. This reflects a broader trend in the Ravens’ offense with Jackson and Derrick Henry sharing the backfield.
The Ravens now draw an excellent matchup against a Bills defense that sits in the bottom left of our chart, struggling in both rushing success rate allowed and EPA allowed per rush. Baltimore should be able to move the ball both through the air and on the ground.
On the other side of the ball, Josh Allen is obviously a threat, and Buffalo’s offense should be able to move the ball. However, the market has already priced that in, and it's a major reason the Bills are favored.
One area where Baltimore could limit Buffalo’s offensive production, even if only slightly, is its ability to contain scrambling quarterbacks.
This season, the Ravens have forced opposing quarterbacks to scramble frequently but have been excellent at limiting the damage. They rank in the 90th percentile in scramble rate allowed and the 99th percentile in EPA allowed on quarterback scrambles. This is particularly important against Buffalo, as quarterback rushing accounts for nearly 25% of the Bills’ offensive EPA.
Allen can certainly overcome that challenge, but it remains a potential limiting factor for the offense.
Allen has also done much of his damage against man coverage, while the Ravens play zone coverage 65% of the time, the eighth-highest rate in the NFL. Allen has still performed well against zone coverage, but his numbers are considerably less impressive.
A similar trend appears on traditional dropbacks. Allen has been outstanding when facing disruption, but his performance from clean pockets has been closer to the middle of the pack. He has struggled more on straightforward dropbacks than in previous seasons, and the potential absence of left tackle Spencer Brown could further complicate matters.
Put it all together, and this looks like a matchup in which the Ravens should be able to move the ball consistently, while the Bills could face more resistance than usual. That raises questions about whether Buffalo’s offense can live up to the expectations baked into a market that appears to value it as perhaps the best offense in the NFL.
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